Athiti Devo Bhava
Interesting information on dialects, thanks for sharing 
Maithili is also spoken in Southern part of Nepal.
Nepali as a dialect of Hindi is a bit difficult to digest - it is way too diff. from the Hindi that we know of. The rest of the dialects, whatever i hv heard in cinema/elsewhere, seem 'Hindi' at least. I think its fair enuff that Nepali is a separate language! Even it's grammar has differences to Hindi.
I always thought Nadiya ke Paar was sorta BHojpuri ... i m sure many like me confuse Awadhi with Bhojpuri.
THis was a great article! Very very informative!
I think AB in Lal Badshah was Awadhi ( many times) ..right !!
Thanks for posting an in depth description of various spoken languages in northern India. I was wondering how do we classify the sweet language Urdu, specially spoken by our elders often times considered inseparable from commonly spoken language “Hindustani”. Can we classify it as Khadi Boli? Another question “does the new generation know whether Hindustani still exist?
What a good post. You have written in depth about these dialects.
How's your baby and his mom?
My pleasure Rujul!
Deepak, Mithila, the region where Sita ji was born, lies roughly near South Nepal and North Bihar. Maithili is derived from Mithila. In fact, one of Sita ji's name is Maithili.
Perhaps that explains the presence of that language in south Nepal.
You are right. Some of these languages, especially the Pahadi ones, have evolved so much that they are now separate languages.
Yes, The Thief, only the accent he tried was a Bhojpuri one, but words were definitely Awadhi.
Uncle, how can I answer that to you. In fact, we would need your perspective because you are the right person.
But Hindustani is the language we speak in Lucknow - A mix of Khadi Boli and Urdu, perhaps.
Thanks Alka, baby is naughty and mom is harassed
Oh, thank god for this post. I had such a debate with a friend who kept insisting that the movie was pure "Bihari" dialect while I kept saying that it was not and it rather had a Rajasthani or a Haryanvi touch to it.
But you sure know a lot
Not fault of your friend, Sudipta. Today we live in such an ignorant world, that we associate any gangster and criminal activity to Up and Bihar.
Rightly said manish, as if there is no crime in other parts of country.
"Hindustani" evolved during Mughal period,
And there is yet another interesting variant of HINDI, most commonly used, that is HINGLISH used by all strata and by the masses as well as classes
And then there is Bambaiyya Hindi too
Good.
In most films, the dialects keep changing from one scene to another without rhyme or reason, and I know you are a fan of AB
Great blog.
Got a few things to add/ change.
Awadhi is an ancient language, which has derived from Brij Bhasha and is also influenced by Bhojpuri.
The core of Awadhi is Faizabad from where it derives its name. In my opinion Awadhi doesn't take a bhojpuri twist until the eastern areas of Azamgarh and Jaunpur. Even Varanasi's dialect does not sound Bhojpur (although I don't know much about Varanasi).
Khadi boli is the language spoken around Delhi, and in the upper Doab (Meerut, Saharanpur, parts of Haryana).
What a lot of people do not know is the role of Awadhi in the development of modern Hindi.
Although it is generally only associated with Khadi Boli, Hindi is actually a mixture of Khadi Boli, Awadhi and Arabic.
Hindi was developed originally as Hindvi (which was also known as Hindustani) by people who came from Delhi and nearyby and settled in areas around Lucknow. They evolved a new language which today we know as Hindi.
And about the Awadhi-Bhojpuri confusion. The fact is that Bhojpuri is just too difficult a language that a non-Bhojpuri individual cannot easily understand. I rememberin the last Kumbh, an old lady from Bihar who only spoke teth Bihari got lost, and no one could understand for their life, what she was saying.
That is why the film industry has for long been portraying Awadhi as 'Bhojpuri', so much so that today a lot of people confuse the two.
Today, this confusion is used to the Hilt by some Bihari chauvinists who are thinking in terms of a Bhojpuri land, who claim a number of Awadhi areas as belonging to Bhojpuri.
In fact the whole ploy of awarding Amitabh Bachchan the "Bhojpuri Samman" award is to steal a popular icon, rather unethically. This happened after Mayawati government wrongly included Allahabad in the Purvanchal SEZ.
I think most south Indians, perhaps also including Maharashtrians and those from the far east don't know the difference between various north Indian dialects. So they confuse things.
I also know Biharis who don't know much about languages spoken in the western parts (including Brij, Awadhi, Khadi boli, etc., and they also confuse quite a lot.
Hi to all.
Hindi has many categories of dialects namely Eastern Hindi (e.g. Awadhi, Chhatisgarhi, Baghelkhandi, Bhojpuri, Maithili, Magahi.), Western Hindi (e.g. Bundelkhandi, Kannauji, Brajbhasha, Hariyanvi etc.), Marwari Hindi (e.g. Marwari, Mewari. Merti and Malwi) and Pahari Hindi (e.g. Kumaooni, Garhwali, and all the dialects spoken in Himachal and Uttarakhand).
Bhojpuri, Maithili and Magahi are basically spoken in Bihar and in some parts of UP like Deoria, Buxar etc.
Awadhi is spoken in the Awadh region of UP where Lucknow is the capital.
Baghelkhandi in spoken in Baghelkhandi region of MP and some adjoing parts of UP. Baghelkhandi is a major dialect of MP and not UP (only a very little part) as the author of the site has written.
Chhattigarhi is spoken in Chhatisgarh.
Bundelkhandi is spoken in MP and UP in the Bundelkhand region.
Malwai is a dialect of MP in Malwa region.
And other Marwari dialects are spoekn in Rajasthan.
But as prayagisawadhi has written many bhojpuri societies and websites like http://www.bhojpuri.org. They are including the Awadhi spoken ares also to Bhojpuri region like Basti, Allahabad, Gorakhpur. I've heard the dialects in those places and they are 80-90 percent Awadhi and only 5-10 percent Bhojpuri (only some words like Ba and Baate). They r trying to occupy more places.
Also many people treat many dialects of Hindi as Bhojpuri aur Bihari specially our media and hindi films. Many of the languages and words use to depict a bihari character is not bihari. They r all from either Awadhi and Khadi Hindi. I have written to that site many a times but they haven't responded. U won't believe but they have started to include MP in their region also but the truth is that Bhojpuri is not spoken by even a single person in MP becoz the dialects being used up there are Baghelkhandi, Bundelkhandi, Malwi and Nimadi.
It is really ridiculous.... how can one include a people from other culture to his culture and call it their culture or language. Isn;t there any way to sue them. Many people thnik Amitabh bacchan is Bihari no he is not... he is Awadhi. But even many people using Awadhi also don't know. Whenever u ask them they will call themselves Bhojpuri...I don't know why? Like people in some regions of Gorakhpur, Basti district of UP. They call themselves Bhojpuri but when u hear them they sound most of the times Awadhi. Now the main problem is how to clear up this dialect mess. This mess was created by media and I think Media only can clear it up.
Thanks n hope this was helpful as I am also one of the struggler of these dialect confusion. The moment I saw that site was inlcuding MP in their region I was full of anger coz i belong to the baghelkhand region of MP. I know about every bit of MP and its dialects. As prayagisawadhi included in his/her thoughts, I was also surprised when Manoj Tiwari a bihari actor, came as a gues in Voice Of India, star plus and sing about bhojpuris that be it UP bihar or MP they
I forgot to write something, in that site http://www.bhojpuri.org/, they are saying that Lord Ram was also from Bhojpuri region which is 100% false. He belongs to Ayodhya which is in Awadhi region. This site is really creating a lot of confusion by calling every dialect bhojpuri n bihari specially Awadhi.
Hi Sunil
I share your passion and concern. But since site is not the last and official word on Bhojpuri, let's ignore them, at best.
Ayodhya was capital of Awadh, and the word is actually derived form Ayodhya itself. Is it must be some cruel joke from them
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